Casualties of War: The Advocate Trilgy

by Bill Mesce

  He was angry with himself for having forgotten. And angry for now being as fearful as Ricks.

  “When the major asked me what to do,” Peter Ricks said to me later, still filled with self-recrimination, “all I could think was, Don’t look at me, old man! You got us into this; you get us out!” Harry had asked for help and the young man had been afraid to offer it. Looking back on that day, Ricks felt he’d failed not only Harry, but himself. “Armando was right about me,” he said, his voice thick with self-disgust.

  It had been a very human stumble in an otherwise fine young man and it disturbed me to see him flog himself so. So I asked him what, with the benefit of hindsight, he could have done differently that, considering the course events came to follow, could possibly have made any difference?

  He shrugged. “But I might’ve felt better.”

  *

  After Ricks left, Harry returned to the case files. Just three days earlier there had been no file; only a few scribbles in his pocket notebook. Now there were personnel files, diagrams, annotated maps, photostats, reports from Scotland Yard, Markham’s deposition, and page after page of notes. He sifted through the pile of paper looking for the answers to the questions he’d posed for Ricks and Grassi. But there was something less concrete he was after as well.

  “Somewhere in here,” and he tapped his head as he related this to me later, “I was telling myself I was just trying to make sure I had a case against Markham and Anderson so damning I couldn’t turn away from it. But I don’t think that was it, not now.” He hung his head, shaking it. “I was hoping — no, I was looking for the flaws that’d tell me I had to be out of my mind to push that case. When Peter Ricks walked out of there that day, I was looking for something, a reason — an excuse — to drop it, so I could say that’s why. And not because I was a coward.”

  Which was typically Harry, ruthlessly — and unnecessarily — castigating himself. He was wrong to do so: Cowardice is about self-preservation, and it was not himself Harry was so fearful of preserving.

  As the afternoon wound on, and the scribbled notes and typed words began to dance in front of his eyes, he pushed the paperwork aside. He reached into his trouser pocket for his billfold and extracted two photographs, which he laid on the desktop.

  They were two of the photos he’d shown me as we sat by the Serpentine earlier that day, products of the family Brownie box, cracked from years riding on Harry’s hip. One was taken the winter before Harry’s enlistment, in early ’42. There’s two small boys in the photo. The smaller, perhaps four years of age, sits on a sled on a field of snow, and his brother, a year or so older, is tugging on the tow ropes. Both are grinning and waving at the camera. They are so bundled in winter garb — coats, hats, scarves, mittens — that they are barely distinguishable from each other, and the faces, tiny in the small frame, are a blurred grouping of eyes and smiles.

  The other photo is Cynthia Voss. It is an older picture, taken at some sort of festive occasion. The photo shows a woman in her mid-thirties, the line of her jaw going soft, her fair hair pulled back with a ribbon in a style one would expect in a younger woman. A shrewd eye would estimate that the features of her broad face, while not unpleasant, would generally be described as plain, but it would take a shrewd eye because her smile transformed her face into something light and gracious and warm.

  I’ll always remember that last glance Harry gave the photos as we sat by the Serpentine, before he tucked the billfold back in his pocket. He looked at that slightly plump woman and his two tykes, and despite the many years of marriage, and the many months of separation, he wore, for a moment, the face of a school lad gazing at a picture of his first love.

  Peter Ricks had fretted about what future he’d have if the Army took the law away from him. But Peter Ricks was still a young man with most of his life before him. For Harry, the answer to that same question was decidedly bleaker. Most of Harry’s years were behind him. There would be no time to start afresh.

  Ironically, the stakes for Harry that were highest were also the most banal. The issue was no longer one of a career-making case, or a deft exercise in jurisprudence, or even one of moral argument. The issue was rent and groceries.

  He turned to the 66-1 files on each of the four pilots involved in the attack on Helsvagen. He withdrew their identification photos and laid them out in a squared quartet on the escritoire. He set down Markham alongside Anderson, a handsome fellow with loose blond hair that almost glowed. Even in the ID photo, Anderson couldn’t repress a cocky smirk. Below them he set Jacobs and McLagen. Jacobs was a lean-looking sort, sunken-cheeked and hollow-eyed, his long face topped by a tuft of bristly hair that looked as if he’d cut it himself. McLagen was victim of either an inept photographer or his own small stature, for his photo showed an inordinate amount of headroom. The round face lost at the bottom of the frame was dappled with freckles and a few pimples, and his smile was that of a boy posed for a school photograph.

  On the right-hand side of his desk Harry imagined the recon photos Christian Van Damm had splashed on the projection screen in the G-2 briefing amphitheater: the crosshatched village streets interrupted by collapsed walls, blanketed by the malignant smoke of the burning depot.

  He looked again and again from the four young fliers to that empty square of desktop where he imagined the burning village. As a group — despite their individual distinctions — the four were wholly unexceptional. Harry could have reached into any military unit in any theater of the war and, at random, drawn out a similar handful of men. But there had to be one unique note, he was convinced, some quality that made the connection possible between those four faces and the pyre at Helsvagen.

  But he couldn’t see it.

  He slipped Cynthia and the boys carefully back into their cellophane sleeves and returned them to his wallet.

  He gathered up the 66-1’s and reached for his cap. For his unanswered questions, Harry could only go to the source.

  *

  There was a knock at the conference room door, then an MP stepped inside, ushering Albert Markham into the room. Harry nodded the MP out and the guard closed the door behind him. Markham stood at attention, his cap tucked under his arm.

  “Relax, Major,” Harry said. He was standing by one end of the table, the four 66-1’s open in front of him. “No reason we have to be so formal.” Emphasizing the point, Harry slid a package of cigarettes across the polished wood toward Markham. Markham nodded a thanks, set his cap down on the table, lit himself a cigarette, and slid the package back.

  “Just us today,” Markham said without looking round the empty conference room. He nodded at the chair at the far end of the table. “Do I take my usual seat?”

  “Wherever you’re comfortable, Major.”

  Evidently, Markham was, for the moment, comfortable where he was. “The way Colonel Ryan was acting in here the other day, you’d think this was his baby. He’s the boss, but you’re really the guy who’ll get credit for the kill, right?” There was no bitterness in the way he said it. No sarcasm. It was simply a flat statement of fact. It was the choice of words that stung Harry.

  “I don’t know that I’d put it like that, but it’s my case, yes.”

  “Mind if I ask you a question, Major?”

  Harry nodded.

  “Is that what this is? You trying to run up a score? Or is it serious for you?”

  Harry weighed an answer. “At this point, something in between.”

  Markham nodded appreciatively. “That’s honest.”

  Markham found an ashtray and carried it with him as he walked to the end of the table. “My little friend isn’t here today.” He mimed an industrious stenographer.

  “This is more of an informal little chat.”

  Markham nodded. “Does that mean I don’t need a lawyer? Your boss sent J.J. and me word that we should start thinking about that. He said if we didn’t have anybody in mind to represent us, that he could appoint somebody. Can I trust your Colonel Ryan to
look after us like that?”

  “Do you have any reason not to trust him?”

  “I don’t know. Should I?”

  They both smiled.

  “If you want a lawyer,” Harry began to offer, but Markham shook his head.

  “I may come back to you on that, but not today.”

  Markham’s head cocked and, at first, Harry didn’t hear the sound, but then, through the open windows, a faint, lazy drone. Markham, still carrying his ashtray, careful not to dribble any ash from his cigarette, moved to the windows.

  “An L-1. Some general going fishing.”

  “You could see that?” Harry asked, his eyes roaming the skies until he found the far-off dot poking about over the London roofs.

  “You get to know the sounds. Do you mind...?” He gestured that he’d like to lean against the conference table. Harry nodded that it was all right. Markham parked a haunch on the table and reached down to massage his right leg. Harry remembered the six-year-old injury from the war in Spain. “You know what a soldiers job is, Major?” Markham asked. “His job is to kill, and sometimes to die. An officer’s job is to tell a soldier when to kill, and when to die. I’ve had both jobs and I didn’t much care for either of ’em. This is a vacation for me.”

  “Vacation? You’ve got a hell of a sense of understatement, Major. Or is this that vaunted Al Markham courage everybody keeps telling me about? Keeps his cool, cracks wise even when the heat’s on.”

  Markham flushed. “Nothing like that, Major. But, even looking at a gallows, any day off the flight line is a vacation to me.” Markham sighed, tiredly, looked up again to follow the progress of the small plane in the distance. He noticed his cigarette was growing short, stubbed it out in the ashtray. He pointed questioningly at the pack sitting in front of Harry and Harry slid it over to him.

  “You believe I used to play ball when I was a kid?” Markham said as he lit another cigarette. Markham took a draught on the cigarette and poked at his thick middle with a finger. “Look at that. All soft. And my wind’s shot. Too many of these, I guess,” and he indicated the cigarette. “I really should lay off these things. Now, Major Voss, what can I do for you?”

  Harry glanced down at the open files. He noticed Markham’s face growing soft as he recognized the identification photos.

  “We know what happened out there, Major.” Markham looked up at him, confused. “Recon photos of Helsvagen,” Harry explained.

  Markham smiled. Harry noticed that a Markham smile always seemed to have a touch of resignation to it. It was as if he’d already anticipated every word out of Harry’s mouth, every maneuver, and pitied him for it. “You don’t know. You think you do, but you don’t.”

  “Believe what you want. The fact is, however much trouble you thought you were in before, you’re in a whole lot more now. When you finally get around to getting a lawyer, if he’s any good he’ll tell you not to count on your glowing record to get you through this.”

  “The record is yesterday. Today’s a new day, right?”

  “That’s right. Don’t have any illusions of you somehow coming through this thing OK. It’s in your interest to help me get a better picture of this whole...” Harry sought for the word.

  “Mess?” There was that Markham smile, again.

  “I’m not going to ask you anything incriminatory, Major, but maybe you can help me with this.” Harry gestured at the files. “All I really want is you to tell me a little about these men.”

  “Tell you what? You guys’ve been pretty thorough poking around on all of us.”

  “You’re an officer, Major, a commander. You know as well as I do — ”

  “That you can’t boil somebody down to his personnel file.”

  “Yes.”

  Markham looked back out the window and shook his head. “I don’t know what I could tell you. J.J.’s my friend. Maybe his loyalty’s a little misplaced, but he’s the best friend I got. He’s a good joe. They were all good joes. That’s all you need to know.”

  “Even O’Connell?”

  Markham’s face clouded. “In his way, yeah. I know it doesn’t mean anything, not in a legal way, and you may not even believe me, but I’m sorry he’s dead. And not just because I may get hung for it.” He smiled ruefully. “I’m sorry about a lot of things.”

  “Major — ”

  “I haven’t told my father about any of this. If I do get hung, does the Army tell him? I mean...how do they do that?”

  “I don’t know”

  “That part of it isn’t your job?”

  “I’ve never tried a capital case before.”

  “This is a first for both of us, then. I’ve never been tried in a capital case before.”

  It was Harry’s turn to sigh. “You’re not going to help me, are you?”

  Markham stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray. “Major, you already know everything you need to know. What you want has got nothing to do with those files. You want to understand what happened out there.” Markham shook his head. “You just think you do. Believe me; you don’t.” Markham stood, straightened his jacket, and turned from the window. “I could talk to you about what really happened out there, I could talk to you about each of those men day in and day out until you walk me up the gallows, and you’re not going to understand anything any better then than you do now.” If there was any emotion to his voice at all, it was sympathy.

  “But I’ll make you an offer,” Markham continued. “You pick up a weapon. Spill some blood. Then, you come find me if I’m still around. Then we’ll have something to talk about.” Markham picked up his cap and knocked on the conference room door. The MP appeared in the doorway.

  “All done, sir?” the MP asked Harry.

  Markham turned to Harry, his look asking the same question.

  Glumly, Harry nodded.

  Markham cast a last look out the window, at the pastel August sky. “You know, all I ever wanted to do was fly.”

  After the door closed behind Markham, Harry looked down at the open files on the table and closed them, one by one.

  *

  Back in his quarters, Harry went over the case files again, and kept at it until the orderlies made their dusk rounds warning that it was time to draw the blackout curtains.

  He considered a walk to the canteen for a light supper but balked at the possibility of bumping into Ryan. He took up his tie, jacket, and cap and left the Annex. Outside the court his steps felt lighter, his mood less fatigued. The moon was rising, sharply articulated stars appearing early, uneclipsed by blacked-out streetlamps and city lights. Harry considered an ale and a meal at The Old Eagle but again, the specter of Ryan pushed him elsewhere.

  He felt compelled to put some distance between himself and Mayfair. He wandered the dark streets until he came to an Underground station; Oxford Circus, I imagine, as the line took him to Embankment Station. He remembered this put him near the Strand and he climbed back to the street and made his way up Charing Cross. Only an occasional cat s-eyed cab and horse-drawn tram traveled the road, and the sidewalks carried only a thin sprinkling of couples moving like shadows through the gloom.

  Harry felt uncomfortable alone on the dark street and nosed into the first cinema he came across, catching the last half of a British production about hijinks between competing fire crews during the Blitz, and then Mrs. Miniver. At that moment, however, he was not particularly receptive to confronting the war with a stoic attitude and stiff upper lip, and Greer Garson’s upper-crust diction reminded him awfully of Sir Whosis.

  What made the film palatable at all to him was knowing it was something Cynthia would have liked. He knew where she would have sniffled with emotion, slipped her fingers in his, and held her breath, moved during the climax when a minister stands over the graves of civilians lost in the bombing declaring, “This is the people’s war! Fight it with all that is in us — and may God defend the right!”

  After, Harry treated himself to dinner at a small restaurant admirably l
acking any of the pretentious airs of Sir Whosis’s dining palace. He had just begun digging into a rather desiccated fruit compote when sirens began their low moan far off across the City They rose into a mourner’s keening. The lights in the restaurant went out as the waiters glided familiarly through the darkness to light candles at each table.

  There was another sound, a high tinkle, like a persistent alarm. Harry looked down and in the flicker of candlelight saw his hand shaking, the spoon in his fingers vibrating against the rim of the dessert cup. He dropped the spoon and stood abruptly, letting his napkin fall from his lap. His waiter, an old Cockney, emerged from the dark and took him by the elbow, lowering him back into his seat.

  “’Ere. Not to worry, sar. Sounds like ’ey’s off a ways, ’ey are. Give St. Paul’s a knock again, sounds like. I’ll get ya a clean spoon, sar, ’n’ ya just relax ’n’ enjoy yer meal.”

  The thudding of the antiaircraft batteries started, throwing up a flak umbrella over the far end of the City. Then, in harmony with the sirens, came the overhead thrum of aircraft engines.

  In the candlelight Harry saw shapes bent over their tables, sipping their drinks, dining without pause, dispassionately discussing the night’s possible targets. A few diners gathered at one of the restaurants tall windows, dabbing their lips with napkins and peeping round the blackout curtains through the starburst pattern of tape on the glass. The first bombs whistled down and the explosions sent lurid red and yellow flashes across the City that lit up the faces at the window.

  Harry felt sweat breaking out all over his body.

  “Ya ha’n’t finished yer meal, sar.” The waiter was back at his elbow.

  “No, no,” Harry stammered, making a poor pretense at simulating the calm of the other diners. “I’m, uh, I have to go. I’m late, see — ”

  “O’ course, sar.”

  “I need my check, please.”

  “Well, then, I’ll be right along wi’ it.” The waiter took a few steps, then turned back, dropping his voice confidentially. “If ya feel the need, sar, there’s an Underground just down the way.”